The Marine Zoologist, Volume 1, Number 1, 1952 Item Type monograph Publisher Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales Download date 08/10/2021 10:26:16 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/1834/32585 I "THE MARINE ZOOLOGIST" • INTRODUCTION This is the first issue of the "Marine Zoologist," a dream which has come. true at last for us, for we have desired a paper of our own for many years. We must thank the Council of the Royal Zoological Society for the ;realisation of this project and for their keen interest in our venture. Donated by . The "Marine Zoologist" is incorporated with the "Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society." The reprints of this part will then be bound under our own cover and become our own magazine. We hope that the infant will become in time so lusty that it may walk alone. In these :first hesitant steps we present to you some of the results of our field collecting and study. Most of us are interested in the various forms of conchology and malacology. The sub-editors have asked :Mrs. Woolacott, one of our senior members, to write an introductory article entitled "Outlines," which defines the fields of study which we hope to follow in future issues of this magazine. We must thank Miss Joyce Allan, Conchologist of the Australian Museum, Mr. T. Iredale, and Mr. Bernard Cotton for their support and for the articles they have so kindly promised to contribute to our magazine. (Signed) MISS G. THORNLEY, MR. D. McALPINE, Sub-Editors. BAMFIELD MARINE * STATION .OUTLINES Dr. Ian McTaggart Cowan By MRS. 1. W OOLLACOTT It is the aim and purpose of members of the marine group of the Royal ......I Zoological Society of New South Wales to collect marine specimens, living and deact, to study them in every manner possible, using available literature as well as observations in the field; and to publish their findings and con- clusions in this small journal once a year. Naturally, we hope to expand considerably as the yeats go by, and, in due course, to produce a small magazine that will be of great benefit to. later students in our chosen field, especially in view of the fact that material readily available to-day may be difficult or even impossible to obtain a few years from now. Members of the Marine Section of the Royal Zoological Society are asked to contribute towards the cost of production of this journal and to pay a reasonable amount for each copy, in order that we may have blocks made and to raise funds for future publications. 37 D r -.- Most of the students' findings can be fairly' well conveyed by the We wish to acknowledge the fine gesture made by the Royal Zoological written word, but that is not now sufficient for the ultimate designation of Society in permitting us to include our notes and records in the Annual a particular species, and illustrations are imperative to finalise the matter Proceedings of the Society. Without this assistance and encouragement it for all time, so we find that the artist is necessary to give the :final touch would not have been possible to make a beginning for a long time to come, to all our observations. and certainly not under such favourable circumstances. Some of our members are interested in taxonomy and systematics and Up to date, most of the work done has been in the molluscan fauna, have prepared and are preparing illustrated papers on these subjects. Others as the bulk of the members are shell collectors, but, as time goes on, we are interested in malacology and ecology and are studying the living animal hope to acquire students in other branches of marine work and so round and its ways, and recording these for future generations. One member is well out our studies to give a more comprehensive picture of the marine life of advanced in the study of our land snails from all possible aspects and has New South Wales. The main reason for selecting New South Wales as carried out some very fine experiments in breeding and in recording the our 'field of operations is obvious, as we are all members of that State, but results of special foods. I am sure that all this worthwhile work will be a greater and more significant factor is that Australia as a whole presents cariied on, and this publication will be the means of encouraging our members such a vast and bewildering number of marine species that it is quite beyond to continue to investigate, study and experiment, in the knowledge that the ability of a small group, such as this, to do justice to in a lifetime; their efforts will be appreciated and their results published. nevertheless, occasional excursions into other States will be made, from time to time, for studies of particular interest. The Australian marine fauna has suffered the fate of ~uch erroneouS nomenclature, owing, in part, to the fact that the early naturalists visiting our shores gave European names to the material collected. These names are * in constant process of alteration, and much painstaking ·and exhaustive study A SHELL THAT BUILDS A HOUSE of literature is necessary to unravel the names of some of the commonest of our sea Shells and other marine f::tuna. This study is termed taxonomy. By C. F. and J. LASEBON Taking a section of the animal kingdom, sUch as the marine molluscan fauna of any given country, or part thereof, and listing the names in the A new record for New South Wales is the extraordinary little bivalve approved scientific method, with the species name being followed: by the name Gastrochaena. When examining material brought up by the harbour dredge of the authority for such species, is termed systematics, and is a very necessary Triton from 6-9 fathoms in the West Channel of the Sow and Pigs Reef in .foundation for any subsequent study of that particular fauna. It has been said Port Jackson, our attention was attracted by small blisters on worn fragments that systematics is the lowest form' of science, but granting that there may of larger shells. When broken open each of these was seen to contain a be a modicum of truth in this assertion, it is still the Sound Rock on which small bivalve. The shell itself is undistinguished, thin, white, elongated all the rest is built. and very inequilateral, the umbones terminally placed, and the united valves gaping widely along the whole of the ventral margin. From comparison Having sound and authoritative lists of the marine creatures to be found With figures of the Tasmanian species, G. tasmanica Ten. Woods, no essential in a given area, a student may branch out from that point and take up any differences could be detected, and the New South Wales shell may be one of several interesting aspects of marine life such as Mollusca (shells). tentatively taken as identical. G. tasmanica has also been recorded from He, or She, may work hard to collect every species mentioned on the list, or South Australia, but the South Australian shells have a slightly different find the greatest joy in adding entirely new species to that list. Then, again, shape'and may be a different species. ' there is the study of the living animal and all its s&ft parts; how it breathes, eats, moves and mates, and the shape and structure of all the organs. This . The main interest in Gastrochaena lies in its habit of constructing a flask study of the living animal is termed melecology, and, by a sound knowledge or house, in which the shell remains hidden throughout its life. As the size of the difference in the animals, many otherwise difficult problems may be of the Hask. is adapted to the size of the shell, the problem arises how the solved and a new species established or an old one discarded. flask is enlarged from the inside. There would seem to be· only one solution. Next we have investigation into the habits of the creature, its seasonal Examination of the surface of the flask with a lens shows that it is covered migration, the area in which it prefers to live, what particular association with.a number of small, rounded, bubble-like protuberances. Each of these of other marine flora or fauna is necessary to its well-being, the degree of evidently marks where the wall has been dissolved away from the inside salinity, the amount of muddy silt which it can tolerate (or even prefer), the and a small annex secreted. In this way the size of the flask increases as food on which it lives, the temperature which it can endure, the mating the shell.within grows. habits and seasons; and the type and form in which the eggs are laid. All . Further examination -shows that in the larval stage the bivalve actually these factors, and many more as well, constitute one of the most fascinating bores just below the surface into the dead shell, emerging some distance of all the studies, ecology. All collectors know that certain marine species away, where it begins to construct the Hask. A tube is thus left through are found only within a very narrow, restricted belt between high and low which the elongated siphons"protrude, and thus the animal, though apparently watermarks, sometimes a matter of a mere band of a few inches, and that it completely enclosed, is able to find microscopic life for its sustenance. would be futile to look for such species either above or below these special There is in Queensland an· allied species which shows rather a different living quarters.